JOE LINDSLEY

 17.11.2023, 21:18

Archive photo by Danylo Antoniuk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Yesterday, the first snow of the season fell in Kyiv, and still, there are none of the expected Russian energy infrastructure attacks. In fact, it’s been months since a major Moscow missile attack throughout Ukraine. Even if those attacks start right now, the pause of the past months has shown that Ukraine, with a small navy, has done significant damage to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Despite this incredible result, the latest global stories about Ukraine focus on the negative, entirely missing Ukraine’s successes at gumming up the Russian works.

This current period of Russian lethargy coincides with Ukraine’s September 22 attack upon the Russian Black Sea Fleet—a devastating blow that has got Russia’s Navy on the run. But it was only this week that the Naval Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces acknowledged this two-month pause in the Russians’ use of long-range missiles to strike targets in Ukraine:

“The enemy was forced to relocate its cruise missile carriers to Novorossiysk [a mainland Russian port, far away from Crimea], but the logistics that service these carriers remained in Sevastopol [Crimea],” said Dmitry Pletenchuk, spokesman for Ukraine’s small navy. “That’s why you are seeing such a big pause in the use of missiles, because now the enemy is faced with the problem of lack of logistics.”

This was achieved firstly on September 22 with just three of the long-range Storm Shadow missiles provided by the United Kingdom, the sort of weapons that the U.S. has been reluctant to send; and then secondarily with ongoing Ukrainian drone strikes throughout the Black Sea and Crimea.

Ukrainians have been hesitant to proclaim this success too loudly, but yesterday President Zelenskiy admitted it. 

“We have managed to seize the initiative from Russia in the Black Sea and created such security conditions that force the aggressor to flee the eastern part of the water area and try to hide warships.”

One might think such a pause from Russia would be the ideal moment to shore up Ukraine’s counter-offensive capabilities.

“Imagine if the U.S. and Germany would provide ATACMS and TAURUS. Crimea would be untenable for RF forces,” retired U.S. General Ben Hodges, one of the rare clear voices saying that Ukrainian victory is possible, said on X on November 14.

And yet, instead of seeing calls to boost Ukraine during this moment of its strength, we see a surprising number of reports and tweets suggesting that Ukrainian morale is low, or that Ukraine is losing:

“It’s time to face the music: the frontline has frozen and this strategy has failed,” tweeted Hungary’s prime minister, an ally of Putin. “We need a plan B. But most importantly, we need a ceasefire and peace talks.”

Konstantin Kisin, a Russian-born British public commentator, who has ingratiated himself with American figures like Glen Beck and Megyn Kelly, and who has claimed to support Ukraine, wrote last week, that with a “heavy heart,” he takes “no pleasure” in saying it’s now time “to end the war in Ukraine.” Why, pray tell, now, during the greatest moment of calm skies over Ukraine?

Yulia Latynina, a journalist in the West but born in, yes, Russia, wrote an op-ed in Washington’s The Hill newspaper November 12, under the headline, “Ukraine is waking up to reality.”

She writes: “While Ukrainian democracy, wounded and traumatized, is slowly waking to the unpalatable truth, the Russian dictator lives in an alternate reality in which he is fighting a world war against America — and winning.”

How is Russia winning?

And in the Washington Post, reporter Siobhan O’Grady writes, “The lack of good news is dampening civilian morale, as are growing fears Russia will soon renew its attacks on energy infrastructure that could make life miserable during the coldest months of the year.” I’ve met Siobhan and she is certainly courageous, but here she is wrong.

I’ve spent much of the past month in Kharkiv, a city just 30 miles from Russia that Moscow has often bombed. Even amid the occasional drone or missile strike, the city is returning to life in a way I haven’t seen since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. As I’ve traveled the past months from Izmail on the Danube in the south, I see generators at the ready, in case Russia does attack. I talk with soldier friends cheerfully improving their drone technology. I see cities full of life. Morale is anything but low.

Yes, the fight at the front is intense, and during these past two months, the Russians have continued what can be called terroristic attacks, with drone attacks on Kharkiv, a missile attack near the port and art museum of Odesa, intensified rocket and drone attacks on front-line cities like Nikopol.

And as I write, air-raid alarms are spreading throughout the country. Yes, at any moment, the Russians could launch something major, even now. We have reports that during these past two months, the Russians have been stockpiling missiles, as many some say as 800, to smother Ukraine very soon, yes it could be now! Be afraid! Even if that is so, the fact that Russia needed these two months to regroup or stockpile shows a weakness.

And what does the West do with these windows of opportunity, paid for in toil and blood?

Nothing.

As the new U.S. Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, took office he said, sure, we’ll deal with Ukraine but first we have the “pressing” problem of Israel.

This is exactly what the manipulators in Moscow and Tehran, and surely other places, want.

It’s no wonder that Putin’s friends are now calling for ceasefires and peace talks: They see that Ukraine is winning, and so their only move now is to lie to the world. Russians have already shown they are willing to rape, slaughter, and torture Ukrainians. Should we be surprised that they will also lie about their strength when the Ukrainian victory seems more possible than ever?

So, as the snow falls in Kyiv, and as the Russian Navy panics in the Black Seak, will we wake up? Or will we give Moscow the time it so desperately needs?